Sun Moon Stars Girl )-(

Welcome to my little place to vent…

I’ve been meaning to post on a variety of subjects for some time now: Amanda’s baby shower, Valerie & Bill’s wedding, Jerilyn’s bridal shower, and my 2.5 weeks in Bar Harbor, ME. Ever since that grad school update post, and my thesis committee meeting, I’ve been working like crazy in the lab - extra long hours, weekends, even a couple holidays. And my life on weekends (when I wasn’t in the lab) have been busy too - up to Nevada for a rally with Kris, a long drive to Idaho and the flight home, the amateur radio field day weekend, the flight back to Idaho, rally IN Idaho, and the long drive back to CA - then it was off on another flight to NJ. Once I returned from the east coast, my friends Ray & Donel were on their way out here for a family wedding and visit with us, and then Kris and I were off to another rally, this time in California. And in between those last two things we celebrated our first anniversary! I thought for sure I would have time to at least start writing those first few intended posts during my time in Maine, but a lack of both internet connectivity and TIME left me where I’d started way back in June! By now, Amanda has had her baby, Valerie & Bill have returned from their honeymoon, my cousin is about to get married, and Kris and I have not only raced, but won our class at THREE rallies, and have traveled to eight states and DC! Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day have passed by in a flurry. What a whirlwind summer!

However - it looks like I’ll have some time today to get some of my long-awaited writing done. Check back for some of those posts with the recent updates coming in below!

You probably don’t remember - but we always will. We bought a new car!

This is going to sound strange - but we accidentally bought a new car. I know you want the whole story now!
Well, it really wasn’t a huge surprise…Kris and I had been looking at newer, more fuel efficient cars for a while now. Back on rainy day last December we test drove all the small cars - the 2/3-door Yaris hatchback, the Scion xA, the new VW Rabbit and Golf, the Nissan Versa (just for kicks - because we saw it on “Heroes” - our big joke about the Versa is that the rear folding seats don’t really fold down, and certainly not flat…), and finally, the Honda Fit. We came to the conclusion that the Fit was the right car for us - a five-door hatch, comfy seats, monstrous interior space (Kris can sit in the rear seat with the driver’s seat adjusted for him to drive - a huge plus there!), and good fuel economy for the price of the car. We decided back then that we would definitely be getting the 5-speed Sport version, and just needed to agree on the color. The biggest thing holding us back was the money - but isn’t that always the case?

Since we knew we would be buying a brand new Honda Fit, we also knew we would need to sell one of our other cars - which basically had to be my Chevy Malibu, because we certainly weren’t going to get rid of the rallycar, and nor could we part with the Blazer, which we use as a service vehicle to tow the Neon. So we brought the Malibu in to get some recalled parts replaced to start the process to sell it. Later that day when we went to pick up the Malibu, we decided to go across the street to the Honda dealership and see if I could take the Fit for a test drive (only Kris had driven the Fit back in December). I really wanted to test drive a manual, but all they had in stock was an automatic - so we were off on our way. Once we got back, we went inside to talk about the car. Before I knew it we were filling out paperwork and negotiating a price! Since we had agreed upon the color we wanted (Vivid Blue Pearl = World Rally Blue for all you Subaru peeps out there!) in the intervening months - we ended up getting a good deal, and buying the car right then and there!

Updates: Buying the Fit that night actually worked out pretty nicely. The next week we were off to Reno for the North Nevada Rally, after which we brought the Blazer and rallycar up to Idaho for the Idaho Rally which we competed at a month later in July. Having the Fit at the point in time meant that we both still had cars at home to drive during the summer while the other cars were up in Idaho. And as far as the money, Kris had just gotten a raise - and TODAY (Sept 9th) we just sold the Malibu - right before the registration and insurance were due! And we love our new FitFit!

Last summer Amanda and Renee had planned a bridal shower for me - so I wanted to return the gracious gesture by having a baby shower for Amanda to celebrate with her again! Renee and I planned everything - from cute decorations to games and food. A couple days beforehand, Renee and I went to buy a few gifts for Amanda, and the rest of the party supplies we needed. One of the items we got were a whole bunch of diapers, so we could make a decoration cake with them. We spent that same night constructing the cake, using a gift of baby lotions and soaps as the middle center portion to hold the whole thing together. Renee had found the cutest froggie hat to top the cake with, which was perfect because (and we didn’t know this beforehand) the diapers had a frog design! During the party, we used the cake for a “guess how many diapers there are” game. We also put together a basket of items for a memory game. We also split duties for the food prep. I made potato salad, pasta salad, chicken salad with croissants, and cool-whip pie. Renee made a veggie platter, some delicious fruit salad, and brought the games and the favors.

We had the party at the Verano Commons - a really nice living room / dining room place that Kris and I had used for our “Celebration of Marriage” party last year. Renee and I decorated with the diaper cake, the favors, and the gifts, while we set up the food. As people arrived, they wrote down their name and a number guess as to how many diapers were in the cake. We grabbed some food, and played a word un-scramble game. After dessert, I brought in the basket of baby items and we played a memory game.

The gathering was small - but we had a few last minute surprise guests ending up with about a dozen ladies, including Amanda’s mom who had flown in that day from Indiana! We had a really great time - I think most everyone there ended up winning a prize for one of the games. And Amanda got the cutest gifts. I’m so happy to have been able to celebrate with Amanda.

Update: Amanda and John had their baby on 8/8/08 - a healthy boy they’ve named William Uldis Duselis. He weighed in at 9lbs 7ozs and was 22 inches long at birth. Congrats!
Update 1/19/09: Just randomly saw Amanda last Wednesday! She had the baby with her and he is SO cute!!! And - I finally posted pics from the shower.

Well, you may have noticed I have added a banner link to my “molto buono” category. This was a link I found off a random blog that I found while searching for something innocuous online. Notice how I’m using the “big words” here too - the new link brings you to an organization that donates rice to poverty-stricken areas while testing your vocabulary! It’s a “good way” to waste time. Enjoy in your free time.

Update 6/5/08: While reading this month’s (June 2008) issue of Reader’s Digest, I noticed freerice.com is mentioned on page 23 (go have a look for yourself on the bottom left corner of the page!).

So I have to apologize a bit for the delay in posting about both Val’s shower and Ray & Donel’s wedding. As soon as I got back from that trip to NJ, I’ve been working like crazy to get new data for my thesis, and more specifically, for my departmental student presentation and annual thesis committee meeting. After being really sick, and yet dragging myself into the lab for an entire weekend to get those last few bits of precious data analyzed (where my advisor saw me in the lab and knew I was sick), I spent a week basically 9-5 over at our stem cell core lab taking the UCI Stem Cell Techniques Course. Before I went home every night I would spend an hour or two in my lab either gathering data, setting up one more plate of samples to be run, or getting tables and graphs ready for my slides. I should have known things would be going downhill when I unwittingly lost about 3/4 of my presentation the middle of last week. See, I’d been going back and forth to the lab so often, I’d just been working on the copy of my presentation on my USB drive, instead of saving a local copy and working on that. So last week when I was just making one small change, I had the memory stick was plugged into Kris’s computer, which is networked in-house to my computer. His computer crashed, and somehow, when he rebooted and I “saved” my slides, only the first 15 or so actually got saved. Crap…

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The rest of Saturday was of course wrapped up in what Kris and I had originally been planning to come to NJ for this weekend - Ray and Donel’s wedding! Of course we had a great time, and both of us, my family, and everyone else I know are so happy for them! They make a great couple. Anyway, for the time being I have posted the pictures from my camera, Kris’s, and my parents in my gallery here (I hope to get a few more of the higher-resolution digital pictures of “us” from Ray soon).

Ok, so as I mentioned below, after Valerie’s bridal shower, Kris, myself, and my mom headed back to my parents’ house to get ready for Ray and Donel’s wedding. It was a big rush to get clothes ironed (I had to turn my skirt inside-out, and Kris’s clothes were super-wrinkled from the trip in the suitcase), but in all honesty it didn’t take all that long to get ready. We headed out just in time, as we heard later that there was a big accident on the parkway which prevented a lot of the wedding guests from arriving in time for the ceremony. Well, it also didn’t take that long to get to the Victorian Manor (my dad already knew how to get there from when we’d visited it to check out as a reception site for my and Kris’s wedding last year), so we arrived in plenty of time for the ceremony. (more…)

Today was the culmination of months of planning between myself, Val’s bridesmaids, and moms for her bridal shower. It was no surprise to Val, who knew what day it would be because it was a day both she and I would be in NJ for Ray’s wedding. Everything went smoothly from the setting up (great table and food arrangements compliments of Val’s friend Rebecca) and decorating (fun decorations provided by Bill’s sisters Margeaux and Julie and his mom) to the games (which were my responsibility). The food was awesome (thanks to Linda, Val’s mom), as was the cake, which was decorated like invitation (which my hubby Kris did the design for), and Marisa put together these awesomely cute favors - little beach bags filled with summer-y colored M&M’s, with a blue ribbon as the handle, which says “Valerie’s Shower April 5th, 2008.” I have a few picture posted from the party in my gallery.

As everyone helped finish setting up, the guests arrived. Soon after, Valerie herself arrived, and gave a great mock surprise expression for some pictures. Since she was out picking up her wedding gown, she was able to show it to all of us right then and there. I must say, it’s simple, yet elegant, and certainly a “Val style.” I can’t wait to see what it’s going to look like on her! Just after I was able to announce the winner of the first game, which was a guestbook sign-in including anniversary date, and my mom won by having the closest wedding date to Valerie and Bill. We made sure everyone had clothespins so we could start playing the “Don’t say the word Wedding” game, and I must say everyone was pretty careful about not saying it right away, but as the party advanced more and more of us slipped up!

Well, the next game we played right away was “Bridal Bingo,” or our version of it which we entitled “Beach Blanket Bridal Bingo.” This isn’t a game that’s easy to find a description on, but is one of my favorites. The game is used as an icebreaker, and what you have is a card with 5×5 squares with different criteria in them, and you have to find another guest that matches that criteria. I tried to make the criteria Val and Bill specific, and when I needed help with coming up with some of those criteria, Marisa had some great suggestions (thanks again, Marisa!). I knew some of the criteria would be hard to fill (”Has been to a roller derby”), but I think because the party was small, it was extra difficult to get a row, column, or diagonal filled when we only allowed one guest to sign each criteria. We still had a great time getting to know one another trying to fill in our squares! Val’s stepsister Amy won this game, and afterwards everyone got some yummy food and chatted about the upcoming nuptials. Marisa, the proud mom-to-be, also shared her recent ultrasound pictures with us. I couldn’t believe how many she had - it was like a whole roll of film of pre-natal photos - and you could really see a lot of body details: an arm, a leg, hands, and the sexing photo to show they’re expecting a boy.

The next round of games shooed Valerie into a room we couldn’t see her, and while the rest of the guests played a memory game, Val herself was filling in a questionnaire for “The Newlywed Game,” which Rebecca and I had conspired earlier with Bill to get the answers Val would try to match. One everyone (including Valerie) was done, she came back into the room so we could see what she was wearing. I actually had the most correct answers, but only because I made a guess at what kind of undergarments she was wearing. Woo-hoo! After I received my prize, Valerie sat down and answered the Newlywed Game questions aloud to see how many answers matched Bill’s, which I read aloud. Since Val was already seated in the designated bridal chair, we proceeded to the gift opening. Margeux and Julie handled passing the gifts to Valerie to make things easier, while Marisa recorded which gifts were from which guests (for ease of thank you card writing later), Rebecca worked on the bow hat/bouquet, and I recorded the funny things Valerie said while opening her gifts - the “wedding night/honeymoon preview.” We took lots of picture and had quite a few laughs, and then everyone enjoyed the cake and various other desserts. I had collected quite a few clothespins by this point, but since I had already won a prize, I purposely said “wedding” thereby pretty much giving my clothespins away.

Once the party drew to a close, Valerie’s cousin Elaine had collected the most clothespins. She was pretty excited, which was very cool. Since Rebecca had brought one more prize that she really wanted to give away, we came to the conclusion that Valerie should decide how that should be done. Her thought was to give the prize to the person who had the anniversary or birthday closest to her and Bill’s real anniversary, which is in December. This person turned out to be Marisa, so that was pretty cool.

After the party was over, we rounded up the men (Bill, his stepdad Tim, his brother Johnathan, Rebecca’s boyfriend Guillaume, and Kris who had spent the time during the party bowling and chowing down at a local diner), and Kris, myself, and my mom headed home to get ready for Ray and Donel’s wedding!

This past weekend started out a little lazy, as I have been sick for a week since the Desert Storm Rally last weekend. But lately Kris and I have been obsessed with playing both Guitar Hero and Rockband. So let me back up a little here…in December, Kris and I were trying to decide whether we wanted to jump in on the GH/Rockband craze - we are admittedly always a little “behind” when it come to this stuff. Well, we hadn’t actually played either game, but I knew my friend Renee’s daughters Lyndsey and Anneli (at the time) had GH 1, 2, 3, and Rocks the 80’s. Since there’s two of them, they also had two guitars. We asked if we could borrow it since we both have Playstation 2, and they graciously let us borrow whatever we wanted - we ended up with their two guitars and GH 1 and 2. They ALSO gave us Singstar and the two microphones they had. So we played Guitar Hero 1 for a week non-stop. We brought one of the guitars to a Christmas cookie-baking party. We couldn’t get enough and finally decided - this is something we have to have. Once Christmas morning arrived, there was a a guitar and game waiting for us under our tree - a wonderful present from the Marciniak side of our family!

Once our friends got back from their Christmas trip to see family in Utah, we were able to give them their games and controllers back. We’ve been playing GH2 on and off when we have time since then. We knew about Rockband the whole time, and certainly wanted to check it out if given the opportunity. Our friends Diane & Eddie had been telling us that they had just bought Rockband back in February, and after our trip out to the Seed 9 Rally (to help them as service crew) we were invited to stay and play Rockband for the very first time! Again, we were hooked. And, a couple weeks ago, Kris and I were able to borrow Rockband ourselves from Lyndsey and Anneli. We had Eddie & Diane and Erik & Amy over for dinner and all played together, then our friend Karen, Vince, and Mick for game night. Unfortunately for us, we only have a PS2 while Eddie & Diane have a PS3 - which has way more interactive features and downloadable content, as well as online gameplay. The huge bummer for this is that the PS2 has all those capabilities too, the game designers just decided to take those features out of the PS2 version for whatever reason.

Ok, so back to Easter weekend. Saturday was a lazy day, both of us relaxing and me especially just trying to get over the cold I’d had for the entire week. We eventually got ready to go out to a murder mystery dinner show, which my parents had bought me tickets to as a birthday present. The show was near the airport in Irvine, so we didn’t have to go very far and actually arrived a bit early. We got to enjoy sitting by the hotel’s pool in a private cabana. Eventually we saw the doors open and went over to go inside. We were told to make up a name and a background story to go with it. We decided to do something fun, and since Kris has been told he looks like Matt Damon, he chose the name Jason Bourne. His background story was that he was a professional race car driver - not too much of a stretch to the imagination! My chosen name was Beth Bourne - since we ARE married after all - and my background was that I was a librarian. Also not too much of a stretch for me to falsify! Once inside, we got some drinks, then were told to mingle and suspect anyone wearing a name tag, question everyone! Not too soon after, we were ushered into the dining area, and were seated. We immediately suspected this one woman at our table, who we realized was alone. Her nametag read “Twin Peaks.” She said she was there because her friend told her about it and that she was an actress. She kept asking us if anyone at our table had been to one of these shows before or knew anything about this one, like how long it was supposed to be or whatever. I definitely thought it was suspicious that “her friend” wouldn’t give her any details or that she herself wouldn’t have tried to look up any info before coming to a show that she was supposedly checking out for an acting gig. At one point she became “part of the action,” and she “wanted to do a reading for an upcoming audition.” Her mistake was saying that audition was THAT night, and her big mistake is that she was a really bad actress. She also mentioned that she wanted to talk to someone who was a director, and I was thinking, um, I don’t think that guy is a director in real life. During dessert they gave us about five minutes to actually write down what we’d thought had happened. Kris and I really had no clue, although we make a bunch of connections between the clues - many more than the rest of our table did. It turned out only one person knew who it was, AND had a really good explanation, so she got some gifts. I was bummed that I couldn’t figure it out, but we still both had a really good time. And I have to say, I like this a lot more than the other two shows like it I’ve gone to in the past. One of these was Shear Madness, which was a lot of fun in it’s own right, though it was more of a show with some slight audience participation - and the ending of the show and killer was determined BY the audience. The other show was good too, and lots of fun because it was part of my family’s last trip to Walt Disney World.

On Sunday, we went over to Eddie & Diane’s place in Long Beach, where we’d been invited for Easter dinner. It was so nice to not have to cook again after being sick the whole week, and to spend a holiday with friends - who are Italian to boot! Diane had prepared and cooked a three course meal! We started with salad, bread, lasagna, pepperoni, and meatballs. It was so good we had to hold off on the next course of grilled asparagus, lamb tips, carrots, ham, and mashed potatoes. So in the meantime we played a bit of Rockband on their PS3! It was really cool to see all the differences - we continued a previous game and acquired the tourbus in a very short time - something you don’t get to do in the PS2 version we’d mostly been playing. Kris mostly played the guitar, and occasionally played the drums; I would have done some singing but my voice was gone due to my cold and sore throat, so the only song I could “sing” was Epic, and I instead took a few turns with the guitar myself. I think because Kris and I played Guitar Hero that we’re a lot better with the guitar and bass than anyone else we’ve played with, but it usually works out because Eddie wants to play the drums and Diane only sings. Anyway, we got through a bunch of sets and eventually got to play at what is essentially Madison Square Garden in NYC. We played the very first set of something like 5 songs there, and saw the second session would have been 18 songs - needless to say, late in the night, with only 4 people, one of whom does not have a voice, we decided to hold off on that one. Well, we had our second course of dinner, had chocolate torte, tea, and coffee for dessert, played a bit more Rockband and headed home. All in all it was an excellent weekend, despite still having a cold!

Yup - today was my birthday! Kris and I stayed up late to celebrate the official start of my birthday at just after 1 AM on Saturday morning. We slept in a little late afterwards, but then, as promised, Kris made me breakfast in bed. He was planning on making it all special, with pancakes and omlettes and meats and juice, but neither one of us remembered that the last egg we had in the house we had used to make dinner the other night along with the sausage we had in the refrigerator….so it ended up being just pancakes and juice - but it was still really special! Kris brought everything necessary upstairs and on his final trip he revealed the last special mini-chocolate chip-studded heart pancake (that I wanted a lasting memory of)! (And it was kind funny because if you flipped it over it looked like the Mouse!)

Afterwards, we got to a task which has been hanging over for us for a while - picking which of our formal pictures that we wanted prints of. It was a hard decision to make, especially because we had offered to let each set of parents have their choice of 30-35 prints apiece as well. Happily, Kris and I both had a good idea of what kinds of pictures we each wanted, so it was just a matter of going through a few of that “type” of picture and choosing the best one. It turned out that quite a few times both sets of parents had chosen the exact same print, and a bunch of times that there was a print all three of us wanted. I am so happy to say that we picked out and were able to order every picture that we desired!

While placing the photo order, we inquired with some of the local HAM radio acquaintances about the best Italian eateries in the area. I remembered (too late!) that the *best* Italian food I’ve ever eaten was up in Sky Forest at Cucina Cielo, where we had dinner during our mini-break just after we’d gotten engaged -but clearly this was a place that would have been too far to go to just for dinner. Instead, we got some great reviews for Bistango in Irvine, and Pepino’s in Mission Viejo. I opted for Pepino’s because Bistango looked a bit *too* pricey, and it also looked like Pepino’s had an awesome martini bar!

So it was off to dinner at Pepino’s. We both ordered Veal Parmesan, our favorite dish. I ordered an Italian Expresso Martini, which was a tasty, almost dessert drink. We were so full from dinner that we couldn’t even think about dessert, so I’m glad I got that martini! Afterwards, we went home and enjoyed some TiVo’d shows we’d been meaning to watch, and ended the day by setting all the clocks forward. It was very strange to have to do that on my birthday; I guess it is something I’m going to have to get used to with the new daylight savings hours. I lost an hour of my birthday, but I don’t mind - I’d rather have the extra hours of daylight at night!

Charlotte shared the happy news about her whirlwind romance and their decision to get married when she returned from a trip to Montana in January. Initially, I was unsure that I would be able to attend, but then my rally friends, Diane and Erik (and their respective spouses) offered up their frequent flyer miles in exchange for us helping them as crew at the Seed 9 rally. I am so grateful to the four of that and making it possible for me to attend my co-worker & friend’s special day.

I flew out to Las Vegas from LAX on Sunday, with a bit of a delay on the runway from the wind in Vegas. I didn’t know until I landed that I’d still arrived before Charlotte, her fiance` Jeffrey, and her sister Sarah, who had driven Charlotte’s car, with trailer attached, from SoCal. The winds made their drive to Vegas more difficult (because they were towing a box trailer from U-Haul), but they did eventually arrive in time for dinner. Instead of picking me up from the airport, Charlotte had arranged for her friends James and Joe to pick me up, so they were already there waiting for me with Tuyen - another co-worker of mine who had left herself to attend graduate school in Boston.

A quick trip to the hotel and soon after Charlotte, Jeffrey, and Sarah arrived. They checked into their hotel room, and one they’d reserved for friends to share, even though it ended up being “the girls’ room.” We all got settled in, and ready for the “rehearsal” dinner. Just before we left, Sarah, Tuyen, and I gave Charlotte some gifts to use as her “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” Sarah brought Charlotte the earrings she’d worn at her own wedding, as well as a garter, a silver pin (that Charlotte put on the garter), and a hankie from their grandmother that had lacy blue trim - which their great-aunt had hand-crocheted. Tuyen had some blue & silver hair jewelry, and I gave Charlotte my veil to borrow.

We set out for dinner at Landry’s, and had a wonderful time. James, Joe, and Tuyen decided they wanted to enjoy a night on the town in Vegas, so they went off to the strip while the rest of us went back to the hotel. Sarah and I started talking and completely lost track of ourselves - we just had so much in common that we couldn’t stop! I think we finally fell asleep around 2 AM. We woke up around 8 AM to start getting ready for the wedding - as Charlotte and Jeffrey went down to the chapel to make arrangements and then went off to the courthouse to obtain their marriage license.

When Charlotte and Jeffrey returned, it was a quarter of 10, and their wedding ceremony was supposed to be at 10 AM! They called the chapel to delay it - as Charlotte would not have had enough time to get ready. Then the curling iron was plugged in, and clothes were flying everywhere as the three girls helped Charlotte put on her makeup, do her hair, and get dressed. We were finally ready to go, and then headed over to the chapel. Last minute arrangements were made re: music, and then it was ceremony time! James walked Charlotte down the aisle as Sarah got their mom on the phone. Jeffrey and Charlotte recited their vows together - which made Sarah and I both cry! They had the longest wedding kiss I’ve ever witnessed, and then it was picture time! I directed several photos of poses I really like from Kris and my wedding, so I hope they came out nice!

Click here for my pictures from the dinner and wedding!
I will post a link once Charlotte & Jeffrey make their wedding page.

After the pictures, we made a quick stop back at the hotel to pick up my luggage before we headed over to the Bellagio for a buffet lunch. Unfortunately, I had to rush to leave to make my flight (which I almost did not!), but before I did, I made the happy couple pose for a few more “classic” pictures - a toast, and the toast while kissing! The food at the Bellagio was excellent, and the next time I’m in Las Vegas, I will be sure to go there for the buffet! Final thoughts: Charlotte and Jeffrey made an adorable couple, and I’m so happy for them both!